Meanwhile, you people also know how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE Pluto TV. And one of the MANY! reasons I love Pluto TV so much is they have an entire channel devoted to Family Ties. They always start with he very first episode, play every episode in sequence through the finale, and then they start right overall over again from the beginning. That means that with 176 episodes the entire series is run and then started over every 88 hours, or about twice a week. The good thing about this is that if you love the show you'll love being able to just drop in & out whenever you want and enjoying it as much as you like, while the bad thing is you start to see small patterns you otherwise wouldn't. So I've noticed a few things upon my now several re-watches without meaning to rewatch, just a few things off the top of my head that I will share with you now. You're welcome, Earf!
Right off the bat, there are exactly two types of episodes to avoid like Reagononics (sorry APK!):1. any Jennifer-centric episode (yawn)
2. any episode in which Elyse has an acoustic guitar (dear God)
Whatever the record for the number of "best-of" episodes a sitcom can have, this show has it; these people were physically incapable of walking by a Christmas tree without pulling out the ol' family slides and sitting down and looking at them for 22 minutes.
Alex doesn't seem to have any friends - he inexplicably just hangs arounds his parents kitchen all the time even in his early 20s - until they suddenly need one for any random episode and then we're supposed to somehow know/believe they've been intense friends for years & years, be it James, his "arch-nemesis!" who we're supposed to get worked up about over his rivalry with Alex whether it's the best grades or a young lady or working at a suicide prevention hotline yet is never seen or even mentioned in any other episode, or Greg, Alex' "best friend" whose death does kick off maybe the greatest episode of the entire series but of course was never mentioned before the episode or after the episode, just like James, so.
The whole "omg Nick is a nightmare boyfriend for Steven Keaton's daughter" thing was funny in the beginning but we're supposed to believe Steven keeps up his boiling rage at Nick for like the next 4 years? Really?
Which also begs the question, why was the penultimate episode all about these two making up anyway? After 4 years of playing the nonsense for laughs we're gonna waste an entire episode right before the finale to clean it all up, with a serious "we understand each other forever now" moment? Really?
I think it was a trope of sorts throughout the 1980s but Alex's sudden passion for getting the rest of the world to appreciate some old blues musician in one episode is a bridge too far into ridiculousness for anyone who's known Alex P. Keaton for more than zero seconds.
Again, why on Earth would Alex keep living in that house?
The fucking kitchen stove, I mean ffs this family had the greatest stove/range in the world for a decade and not once did anyone actually come close to using it.
Nick is in long line of characters that start cool but just get absurdly dumb, like Trigger from Only Fools and Horses or Kevin from The Office.
This show broke the record for whatever the record for “mom goes back to work and oh my the world is ending at home!!” episodes is, and every single time it was a couple rolling eyeball sesh. "This week Alex, a 21 year-old college junior, has his world torn apart when his mother goes back to work, turning the household upside down ohooooooooooooo my!!!"
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